Killing vs. Capturing

[putts]

For my first little while playing MTW, I treated it much like an advanced Risk......I got my territories, did what I needed to build up a good army and then just moved them in and hoped for the dice to fall in my favor.

Just recently, however, I have begun actually fighting most of my battles personally.

One thing I've noticed is that when I let it automatically resolve, the casualties (on both sides) were much higher in general.

If I attacked a full stack with one of my own, it wasn't out of the ordinary for the total casualties to be around 1000 men. But, when I fight that same type of battle personally, I end up losing around 200-250 men, killing an equal amount and then capturing 300-400. I am just assuming that I am good at hitting the enemy at the right moments to route their troops but not really sure. I also tend to build the better troops, which might help.

Do a lot of players see similar outcomes in your battles?

Additionally, do you aim to kill as many in a battle to totally eradicate their army or do you try to hold on to prisoners to make some extra Florins?

[Peasant Phill]

calculated battles are being fought differently then the ones you command yourself, as a result the outcome can be very different. Calculated battles have both sides face each other in a full out frontal attack, meaning that all units will be engaged at once and that there are no tactical advantages to be won. Commanded battles only support 16 units on both sides at once and there are huge tactical advantages to be reached (when on a steep hill, defending a bridge, hammer and anvil tactics, ...).

This means that there is a huge difference between commanded and calculated battles. Because there are no tactical advantages to be achieved in calculated battles, there won't be any quick routes (only routes by attrition) which means a lot more casaulties on both sides.

Most of the times you'll have less casaulties on your side if you command your battles yourself. This can somethimes not be the case when you're still learning, make a capital tactical mistake, fight at a steep disadvantage or would otherwise outnumber your opponent a lot more.


It depends on the situation when it's best to kill or to capture. For example, when you're pressed for money, it's best to capture as many as possible. If you're facing a high quality army that you've just managed to beat, or you've lost most of you're men it could be best to kill as many of your opponents men. You can also face the same general with the 'good runner'-vice by routing his army time and time again instead of killing him.
In short, if you can use the money capture, if you don't want to face those men again kill.

[Heidrek]

There's a lot of debate about what the better option is. If I capture a lot of enemy troops I tend to kill them, as even if I have to face them again they will inflict kills that will take time and money to replace so it could actually cost me more money than I make in ransom.

also, I tend to kill when I'm invading someone elses territory and it'll be harder to get reinforcements, and ransom when defending my own lands which are easier to resupply.

[seireikhaan]

Eh, for me it depends on the situation. If I've got a booming economy and I'm at least 40-50k florins, then I'll just execute every prisoner I get just to eliminate the hassle of dealing with them again. However, if I'm a bit more tenuous on the economy, then I'll generally let things play out and see if I get a ransom or not. Unless its a really massive number, like against the Mongolsl, where the sheer cost of having to fight them again would outweigh the benefits of the ransom.

[Heidrek]

.....both sides face each other in a full out frontal attack, meaning that all units will be engaged at once and that there are no tactical advantages to be won.

So, if you jast had an army of all heavy infanrty units and melee superstars you could autocalc your way to victory against armies that wouls actually tear you apart?

Who does Autocals handle archers and HS's for example?

[ArtistofWarfare]

this is definitely an area that I need to learn more about as well...

It's quite confusing...

Even when it makes sense to kill prisoners, it generates by in largely poor vices.

[Martok]

So, if you jast had an army of all heavy infanrty units and melee superstars you could autocalc your way to victory against armies that wouls actually tear you apart?

Who does Autocals handle archers and HS's for example?

IIRC, the auto-calc treats archers and other missile units as if they had fought hand-to-hand, meaning it only looks at their melee stats.

[caravel]

As a rule I only execute prisoners when I'm losing the battle. Otherwise I tend to hold on to them and send in my light cavalry to mop up as many routers as possible to gain more. The way I see it the benefits are thus:

Pros:

1) If the enemy pays the ransom: Money!
2) If the enemy pays the ransom they have to support a lot of battered units with low loyalty (possible civil war trigger)
3) If the enemy pays the ransom they may regain a general with one of the coward line of vices
4) If the enemy pays the ransom, they are weakened financially
5) If the enemy don't pay the ransom, loyalty will drop


Cons:

1) The enemy may pay up and regain a decent army to use against you again.
2) Your general will not gain one of the "butcher" line of dread boosting vices.

Also if you do execute prisoners you may actually be helping the AI out - this may not always be a bad thing - by removing low quality units and freeing up the AI faction's economy to train better ones. Remember that the AI cannot disband or retrain so this is a factor. Also the dread boosting vices are not much of a loss. Dread is a stat that only affects the loyalty of a province where that man is a governor, by improving loyalty. Apart from this it is only relevant to the faction leader - in the global sense - so it's not that useful. It may be useful to get the butcher vice if you're struggling to hold down rebellious provinces, though I find it's better to rely on well trained spies, decent garissons and happiness boosting buildings for this.

[Ironsword]

^^ With regard to Killing or not, the post above is about as comprehensive as you can get.

The other part of your question was about auto calculations. IMHO yes, the death toll is usually higher and another disadvantage of auto calc. is that it seems to spread casualties throughout your units. - The amount of times I've had to disband trebuchets with a crew of four! This is really annoying, because really your artillery units rarely see the cut and thrust of the melee.

[caravel]

The other part of your question was about auto calculations. IMHO yes, the death toll is usually higher and another disadvantage of auto calc. is that it seems to spread casualties throughout your units. - The amount of times I've had to disband trebuchets with a crew of four! This is really annoying, because really your artillery units rarely see the cut and thrust of the melee.

This is because, as Martok pointed out, all of your units, including the archers and trebuchet crews have to fight in melee in an autocalced battle. Missiles don't come into it nor do they confer any advantage. If you play a campaign where you are auticalcing everything your best bet is to train nothing but the strongest sword/cavalry attacking units.

[Peasant Phill]

So, if you jast had an army of all heavy infanrty units and melee superstars you could autocalc your way to victory against armies that wouls actually tear you apart?

Yep, that's rigth. But it doesn't even have to be heavy hitters, an big army full of peasants can win in autocalc where if the battle was played out they would, like they should, horribly lose.

I, however, don't look at my battles and evaluate whether or not it would be benificial to autocalc. It's just to much fun to command yourself (unless the battles become repetitive).

[Aldgilles]

What Caravel says goes for me to. Exeption is if I catch a multi-star general; I will execute him. Otherwise, after a few battles, the enemy mostly chooses not to ransom the prisoners...

[Jxrc]

IIRC, the auto-calc treats archers and other missile units as if they had fought hand-to-hand, meaning it only looks at their melee stats.

Correct indeed. Playing as the Bizz one of my armies made of Kata (emperor Alexius I) and Byz infantry was attacked by 16 turkish horse harchers (0 star). Campaign already bored me so I auto-calc before starting a new one. Result was that my army had killed almost all the HA with losses like 15 men ... I bit silly if you ask me cause for once I thought that the IA had made quite a smart move ...

[Caerfanan]

I would say it's a balance between many things:

- Just defeated the horde at kiev and took 1000 prisonners? Kill, kill, kill.
- need for money: ransom
- quality troops taken while an army was routing (e.g. big armored kngihts or teched up halberdiers almost not killable): kill
- your general has already killed prisonners... I'll pay attention, the second level of the trait gives a morale malus...

[ArtistofWarfare]

As a rule I only execute prisoners when I'm losing the battle. Otherwise I tend to hold on to them and send in my light cavalry to mop up as many routers as possible to gain more. The way I see it the benefits are thus:

Pros:

1) If the enemy pays the ransom: Money!
2) If the enemy pays the ransom they have to support a lot of battered units with low loyalty (possible civil war trigger)
3) If the enemy pays the ransom they may regain a general with one of the coward line of vices
4) If the enemy pays the ransom, they are weakened financially
5) If the enemy don't pay the ransom, loyalty will drop


Cons:

1) The enemy may pay up and regain a decent army to use against you again.
2) Your general will not gain one of the "butcher" line of dread boosting vices.

Also if you do execute prisoners you may actually be helping the AI out - this may not always be a bad thing - by removing low quality units and freeing up the AI faction's economy to train better ones. Remember that the AI cannot disband or retrain so this is a factor. Also the dread boosting vices are not much of a loss. Dread is a stat that only affects the loyalty of a province where that man is a governor, by improving loyalty. Apart from this it is only relevant to the faction leader - in the global sense - so it's not that useful. It may be useful to get the butcher vice if you're struggling to hold down rebellious provinces, though I find it's better to rely on well trained spies, decent garissons and happiness boosting buildings for this.

This post answers quite a few of my questions pertaining to this...

I don't think I even considered in my Italian campaign that ransoming the prisoners back to the AI would cause them the same loyalty (as well as vnv) issues that I have to deal with. Definitely changes my approach to this in the future.

I also, did not know that the enemy's influence automatically falls when they refuse to pay a ransom. This is quite helpful as well...

Good post Caravel...

[caravel]

Good post Caravel...

Why thank you dear sir!

[Vladimir]

Killing POWs is a good thing, for your enemy. Give or sell them back their beat up units. Kill the generals.

That is, in less, you get that magic number: 1001

[Heidrek]

people mention a loyalty penalty to the captured troops that are ransomed back - how big is the penalty? does it affect everyone that gets ransomed?

Also, I heard mention that killing prisoners mid battle has an affect on the enemies morale - is that right?

[ArtistofWarfare]

Also, I heard mention that killing prisoners mid battle has an affect on the enemies morale - is that right?

I'd like to see this confirmed as well...as I always thought that it did heh...

[bamff]

Also if you do execute prisoners you may actually be helping the AI out - this may not always be a bad thing - by removing low quality units and freeing up the AI faction's economy to train better ones. Remember that the AI cannot disband or retrain so this is a factor.

I didn't realise that the AI could not disband or retrain....that would explain all of those "partial units" roaming the field, wouldn't it? Taking this on board, and putting a different spin on things, I might actually start being less merciful in order to assist the AI by "pruning"...got to be cruel to be kind I suppose, and it may assist by creating a more challenging AI....

I will confess that in the past I have only ever executed prisoners when things were looking a touch "shaky" on the field....

As usual, Caravel, you are not only a mine of information, but you really do get me thinking a bit differently, and perhaps a touch harder about what is going on....

[Ravencroft]

Well,I kill prisoners especially if my commander is a 0 dread pansy and needs to be feared.

That's why I don't like this game's AI very much: it does not know how to replenish troops.

Just me two cents.

[caravel]

Well,I kill prisoners especially if my commander is a 0 dread pansy and needs to be feared.

Only valid if you think he'll make a good provincial governor as dread has no effect in battle.

That's why I don't like this game's AI very much: it does not know how to replenish troops.

Just me two cents.

IIRC RTW/M2TW's AI also does not retrain it's units. This has not yet been implimented in a TW game as far as I'm aware.

Generally, if you want to do the AI a favour and you have just won a battle, routing and capturing hundreds of low quality units from the enemy... hit the button. If you've captured mostly half decent troops and the AI's economy is solid, then ransoming is the best option.

[Ravencroft]

Thanks, I already knew that. Example, if a smart guy(i.e.4+ acumen) is a governor candidate, then he's not that useful unless he's scarier than most(1+dread).

It's more useful with my king, mostly. If my king has 2-3 dread and has a rather large kingdom, then dread probably plays a huge part in empire stability.

On a side note, does king's dread affect kingdom happiness?

[ArtistofWarfare]

Thanks, I already knew that. Example, if a smart guy(i.e.4+ acumen) is a governor candidate, then he's not that useful unless he's scarier than most(1+dread).

It's more useful with my king, mostly. If my king has 2-3 dread and has a rather large kingdom, then dread probably plays a huge part in empire stability.

On a side note, does king's dread affect kingdom happiness?

I think there's a misunderstanding here:

IIRC a Governor with dread would have a negative effect when governing a "home" province...or one that is predominantly Catholic (if you're playing as a Catholic faction).

The Governing benefit from Dread comes into play when dealing with newly conquered provinces or with provinces that have a majority of their population following a religion that differs from your faction's religion.

A conquering General with Dread should give that province some kind of a loyalty boost at least initially...but I don't believe that it does.

[caravel]

I think there's a misunderstanding here:

IIRC a Governor with dread would have a negative effect when governing a "home" province...or one that is predominantly Catholic (if you're playing as a Catholic faction).

The Governing benefit from Dread comes into play when dealing with newly conquered provinces or with provinces that have a majority of their population following a religion that differs from your faction's religion.

A conquering General with Dread should give that province some kind of a loyalty boost at least initially...but I don't believe that it does.

No. Dread simply equates to happiness (known as "loyalty" on the province info parchment but as "happiness" everywhere else).

If you give a provincial title to a high dread general, dread will always increase the base happiness of the province. Dread never makes any province less happy.

Piety works differently in that high piety causes unhappiness in provinces that don't match your faction's religion and happiness in those provinces that do. It is said that zeal also plays a part though this is a matter of debate.

Whether a province is newly conquered or not has no bearing on the effects of dread or piety. A province, even if it matches your faction's piety exactly, still takes a few years to "acclimatize" to your rule. Eventually happiness may rise well above 200% (only 200% can be displayed but higher values are possible) and it may seem that such factors as a general's dread or piety may not be having any effect. It is but the effect is invisible and no longer relevant. In this case the high dread/low piety general may be better off demoted and moved elsewhere.

Provinces naturally acclimatize to your faction's religion over time and this rate can be increased by deploying religious agents to the province or building religious structures to accelerate conversion. Religion also seeps across borders and I believe, though I'm not 100% on this one, that this seepage is increased if the neighbouring province has religious buildings.

[macsen rufus]

Religion also seeps across borders and I believe, though I'm not 100% on this one, that this seepage is increased if the neighbouring province has religious buildings.

This is very true Some buildings have a "faith propagation" factor, and this causes the faith's influence in neighbouring provinces to increase. I once overdid it, and gave my "Temple of Solomon" so much faith propagation that it turned all the neighbouring provinces 100% Jewish in a single year I turned it down by a factor of 100 and it balanced out more realistically...

[Heidrek]

so noone knows whether killing prisoners affects enemy morale?

[Roark]

I don't think so.

I tested this as the Picts, in battle with about 3500 Mercians.

I defeated the first two waves of crack troops, killing the general, and collecting about 800 prisoners. I then set up crossbows in two horribly destructive lines, and chased down all enemy units that routed as a result of morale-dampening missile fire. Total prisoners: 1900

The final wave consisted of depleted units of Fyrdmen and peasants. Not terribly brave souls. I turned off my crossbows' fire at will, and executed all of my prisoners.

Nothing.

It was only the live action on the battlefield which seemed to have an effect on the enemy's morale.

[macsen rufus]

Hah! Mercians are hard, you know

I wonder whether the effect might not be the other way round? If they see their fellows being executed they may fight all the harder to avoid their own capture and avenge the barbarous deaths of their compatriots?

Not strictly analogous, but think of Sun Tzu's concept of "death ground" - you are giving the enemy only two options - win or die.

It's also possible your own troops might be the ones demoralised - they now know what a mean their general is, it looks a bit like you might be losing control of the battle, and they lose their share of the ransom....

[Caerfanan]

Yes, you're probably right Macsen Rufus

(that's actually written in the art of war: always leave a visible exit door)